Tears fell as the alleged victim described her feelings of hopelessness.
The Kenyan woman talked about how she wanted to get out of her country, get an education and eventually return to support her family.
She said James Cornell Clark offered that to her – for a price.
Clark, a former Lubbock minister, is accused by federal prosecutors of bringing a woman here from Kenya for prostitution. Testimony in his trial began Monday.
Testimony is scheduled to resume today.
Clark was indicted in April on one count of importing an alien for immoral purposes.
The woman said she had been working as a prostitute for four months before she met Clark at a hotel in Nairobi, Kenya.
She testified she was meeting him to exchange contact information but that he asked her to strip and take a shower.
They did not have sex, she said. But he did offer to bring her to the United States.
She said she desperately wanted to leave her country to get an education.
Clark enrolled the woman at South Plains College and paid her tuition.
She felt threatened by him, she said, and feared he might become violent.
Clark stopped paying her tuition and threatened to deport her because she would not have sex with him, she testified.
However, e-mails between the two show Clark wanted her to repay him for tuition regardless of whether they had sex.
“If you do not wish to have sex with me, fine,” Clark said in one of the e-mails.
Comments